In this respect an instructive parallel
might be drawn between the history of Christianity and the history
of Buddhism. Both systems were in their origin essentially ethical
reforms born of the generous ardour, the lofty aspirations, the
tender compassion of their noble Founders, two of those beautiful
spirits who appear at rare intervals on earth like beings come from
a better world to support and guide our weak and erring nature. Both
preached moral virtue as the means of accomplishing what they
regarded as the supreme object of life, the eternal salvation of the
individual soul, though by a curious antithesis the one sought that
salvation in a blissful eternity, the other in a final release from
suffering, in annihilation. But the austere ideals of sanctity which
they inculcated were too deeply opposed not only to the frailties
but to the natural instincts of humanity ever to be carried out in
practice by more than a small number of disciples, who consistently
renounced the ties of the family and the state in order to work out
their own salvation in the still seclusion of the cloister.
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